With 2025 starting in a few days I looked at the most commonly searched keyword in every country that starts with “how to be more…” to find out how we want to better ourselves in the coming year.
Key Findings
1) The most popular New Years Resolution is to be more confident. Sixty three countries want to learn to be more confident than any other trait – over one third of all the countries sampled.
2) Surprisingly “how to be more feminine” was searched more than any other phrase by 25 countries. The desire to be more feminine is particularly prominent in East Africa and Eastern Europe, with Kenya, Uganda, Croatia and Serbia all having this as their most Googled term.
3) People from nine countries want to be more romantic in 2025. This was particularly common in West Africa, where “how to be more romantic” was Googled more than any other term.
Below is a table that shows the most popular New Years Resolutions by country:
New Years Resolution | Number of Countries | Notable Countries/Regions |
Be More Confident | 63 | UK
Australia Canada Russia Western Europe: France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Netherlands Scandinavia: Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland South East Asia: Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Philipines |
Be More Feminine | 25 | East Africa: Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda
Eastern Europe: Serbia, Bulgaria, Latvia, North Macedonia, Croatia |
Be More Productive | 21 | South Asia: India, Bangladesh
East Asia: Japan, South Korea North West Africa: Morocco, Algeria, Mali |
Be More Social | 15 | USA
Southern Africa: Malawi, Botswana |
Be More Romantic | 9 | Western Africa: Nigeria, Benin, Sierra Leone |
Be More Attractive | 8 | Chile, Greece, Turkmenistan, Lebanon, Cyprus, Malta, Greenland, American Samoa |
Be More Organised | 7 | Angola, Papua New Guinea, Mauritius, Fiji, Cape Verde, Maldives, Andorra |
Be More Sustainable | 5 | China, Palestine, Costa Rica, Panama, Guernsey |
Be More Creative | 4 | Indonesia, Colombia, Burundi, Samoa, |
Be More Grateful | 3 | Gambia, Gabon, Belize |
Be More Masculine | 2 | Myanmar, Bosnia and Herzegovina |
Be More Reliable | 1 | Ecuador |
Be More Calm | 1 | Belarus |
Be More Athletic | 1 | Moldova |
Be More Positive | 1 | Iceland |
Be More Intelligent | 1 | Cameroon |
Commenting on these findings, Oli Baise, an online researcher who ran the study said:
“I hope that the prevalence of “how to be more confident”, “how to be more social” and “how to be more romantic” demonstrates that no matter where we come from we all fundamentally want the same things – to be happy with ourselves, to feel connected to the people around us and to feel loved and appreciated.
However I find it troubling that the second and third spots on this list are: “how to be more feminine” and “how to be more productive” respectively.
This demonstrates the reach that unrealistic beauty standards (especially for women) and “grind culture” – or perhaps even financial insecurity – have over us globally.”
Methodology
To find out each country’s most popular New Years Resolution, Oli Baise Digital looked at Google Keyword volume data for keywords that began with “how to be”.
Anything that was related to a brand (“How To Be Single” for example) was excluded from our list. Similarly any two keywords that meant the same thing (“how to be more attractive” and “how to be more good looking” for example) were consolidated together.
In countries where English is not widely used, we translated “how to be” into their native language.